God Being as Real in Your Life as He Should Be

What would you do different if God was as real in your life as He should be, as you know He should be? What would you change about your life if God was as real as He ought to be? What would you do different?

Transcript

There came a time in my life where things kind of came to a crisis and I realized, you know, "I want to know God," and I went out one night, I was at some special meetings and I went out under the moonlight and I was crying out to God, you know, and I was just dry as I could be. Then I just sat there for a while and it just kind of dawned on me, another one of those things where the Holy Spirit just kind of quietly tells you and this is the thought that came into my mind, "What would you do different if God was as real in your life as he should be, as you know he should be? What would you change about your life if he was as real as he ought to be? What would you do different?" Well, I said, "I know one thing I’d do, I’d sell my black leather jacket. I don't think it's probably the best thing and I’d sell my umpteen-teen dollar stereo that I had." I think I had already sold my motorcycle at that time. This was stuff, again, I’m not saying these are absolutes, it was something God was showing me. I know one thing I'd do, I’d go back, you know that picnic table that that other guy and I tore up back years ago. We tore up that guy's picnic table. I knew I had done it and I have never gone back to that guy and gotten it right. I know one thing I'd do if God was as real as he should be, I'd go back and get that right. I'd go and confess that and those seats that we tore up in the movie theater that time, I'd go back and tell him about that. That's one thing I would do. Then I just started writing down the stuff that I would do if God was as real as he should be and by the time it was over, I had a list and by the grace of God, every one of those things I was able to go back and get it made right. I'm not talking about you trying to cook up some kind of guilt that you don't have, introspection and that kind of thing but a lot of times what happens is somebody just mentions something like this and wham, that thing comes up and you know in your heart and mind God is talking to you about that. You didn't think it up, he brought it to your mind and you get that thing taken care of and, I’m telling you, my life was transformed by obedience to those things that God showed me to do and it wasn't any big experience, you see, it was just being violent. I have a friend who is a pastor now and before he became a Christian he was a pretty rough guy and he was particularly obnoxious when he'd get drunk and he came to know the Lord and one of the things that he and another guy that was a very rough character, they had gone one time and they had taken rocks and just broken out the windows in this building, one whole side of the building. After he became a Christian, God brought that to his mind and now, this is violent. It's not easy. You go back and go to that place and you tell them, you know, "I'm the guy that broke those windows out." That's not easy to do. I know a guy that had embezzled $5,000 from 7-11. He had to go back and tell them and somebody told him, they said, "You don't need to do that. You don't need to go back and get that made right. Just confess it." But he knew in his heart, he knew that was not right. Anyway, my friend went back and confessed what he had done breaking out those windows. Alright, some time later he saw the guy that he had done it with and started telling the guy, he said, "Rodney, I’ve come to know the Lord. I've become a Christian." Do you know what the first thing he said was? "What about those windows?" Isn't that amazing? And he could say, "I've got that taken care of." You see, it's violence and, beloved, there is life there. There is life if you will be violent. If you won't be violent, I didn't say it, Jesus said it: there is death. There is death.